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Category: Diaspora News

Written by Kim

The war in Somalia has led to close intelligence collaboration between Burundi, Djibouti, Kenya and Uganda that is thought to have thwarted plans by the Al Shabaab militia to launch terror attacks in the region over Christmas and New Year holidays.

The first public indication of this increasingly tight-knit intelligence networking from countries with troops in Somalia came during the November 2011 extraordinary session of the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (Igad), held to discuss the Somalia crisis. It has emerged that there was a technical meeting on the sidelines to try hammer out a framework for joint operations.

Kenya’s Assistant Minister for Internal Security, Joshua Orwa Ojode, noted that there was a close collaboration among all the neighbouring states in monitoring Al Shabaab activities.

“Even though each state has its separate intelligence gathering network, we call each other often and exchange information on the activities of Al Shabaab. However, there is no joint regional intelligence entity to deal with the group,” he said.

With Kenya’s entry into the war, followed by Ethiopia’s return a month later, sources tell The EastAfrican that Nairobi has become a “beehive of intelligence co-ordination” for the war effort in Somalia.

Kenya and Uganda, for instance, had warned citizens of major reprisal attacks over Christmas and New Year celebrations, but the holidays passed without incident, barring a grenade attack at a Garissa nightclub on December 31.

Source, The east African